Complaint leads to strife between VFD and Littleville Town Council

LITTLEVILLE, Ala. – Emotions came to a boiling point over the weekend between the Littleville Volunteer Fire Department and the town’s leaders. The fire department says the mayor has threatened to shut them down. This comes on the heels of an already strained relationship.

The LVFD said the latest tension between Town Hall and the department stems from an unsubstantiated complaint. Department officials state there was a recent complaint by a resident stating during transport to a hospital a patient was dropped.

Capt. Jared Ergle

“To the best of our knowledge, none of it actually happened, as far as we’ve investigated it ourselves,” explained Captain Jared Ergle, a spokesman for the department.

Ergle stated the patient’s wife came to their department threatening a firefighter. Ergle said the wife then went to the police department, filing a complaint stating the firefighter cussed at her. The complaint made it to the mayor and town council.

“They never really came to us or the chief or our board even, just to say we’ve had this citizen come and brought this to our attention, and we want to hear y’all’s side of it,” Ergle explained.

In the latest town council meeting, Ergle said the mayor threatened to disband the fire department.

One year ago, a police officer threatened to arrest a firefighter on a call stating he was hindering police operations.

WHNT News 19 tried reaching out to Mayor Scott Howard for comment, he never called us back. However, Howard did speak to the fire department Monday morning.

“He’s agreed we just need to sit down and talk it out; try to see if we can settle this without any legal issues and that is what we are going to do,” said Ergle.

The fire department says they are cautiously optimistic the latest strife can be worked through. There has not been a date set on when the two parties will sit down and talk about each other's concerns. The next scheduled meeting of the Littleville Town Council is December 18th.